The present invention is directed to weaving of the type producing garment labels and the like, and more particularly to methods and apparatus facilitating set-up of a loom for producing woven articles in different widths.
Garment labels and similar woven articles are often mass-produced on a gang-type loom having from 6 to 20 weaving heads, a programmed jacquard unit of the loom upstream of the weaving stations controlling the graphic content of the labels by operating guide harnesses for sequencing warp strands of warp yarn (which are known in the art as "warp ends") between intersecting path planes in intervals between passes of a weft needle, a slotted reed member reciprocally compacting a weft yarn following each cycle of the weft needle. Labels of various widths within a maximum weaving width can be produced by using less than a full complement of warp ends. Traditionally, set-up of the loom for a different label width requires complete rethreading of the loom, including substitution of a warp supply bobbin or "warp beam" having a new complement of warp strands. The rethreading is a massive undertaking in that each of the hundreds or thousands of strands must be threaded through a particular set of jacquard harnesses and a corresponding slot of an associated reed member, the rethreading typically requiring two workers, 2-3 days of intensive skilled labor with corresponding down-time of the loom. Further labor is required for readjusting a stop wire of each of the heads that automatically shuts down the loom in the event of yarn breakage.
In an effort to limit the need for warp beams having many different complements of warp strands, the prior art includes apparatus for collecting surplus warp strands of warp yarn from a warp beam. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,691,742 to Ushiro. Thus it is not required to change warp beams using the apparatus of Ushiro when setting up for a different width article to be woven. However, extensive rethreading of the loom itself is still required, particularly when there are multiple weaving stations. Also, the apparatus of the prior art for collecting surplus warp strands is ineffective for tensioning strands of different denier (weight per unit length), i.e., having different cross-sectional areas.
Thus there is a need for a way to switch between weaving widths of a loom, particularly a gang-type loom, while avoiding extensive rethreading of the loom.